Litchfield officials examine plans to combat drugs in schools

Officials examine plans to combat drugs in schools

By
Ryan Flynn, Register Citizen

Monday, October 21, 2013

LITCHFIELD >> Town officials and community leaders are looking to be proactive in the fight against substance abuse by students in the school district. At an informal organizational meeting Monday afternoon at Litchfield Community Center, members of the Litchfield community had an open discussion about drug problems in the schools.

“I want to know what’s going to be done about it,” parent Thomas Battiste said. “I know right now, there’s heroin in that school and we need to squash it.”

First Selectman Leo Paul, Superintendent Deborah Wheeler and state Rep. Craig Miner were among those in attendance, as well as Rotary members, parents, state troopers, PTO members and one Litchfield High School student.

The plan, as described by Allison Fulton and Heather Sadler, representatives from the Housatonic Valley Council against Substance Abuse, and hashed out by those in attendance, is to form a committee consisting of community members who would plan out a course of action.

Paul was the first to volunteer, followed by parent Ron Glander, Litchfield-Morris Rotary Club President David Pavlik, Hawkins and Litchfield High School student Vicki Minervino, who is a junior.

Hawkins and Wheeler previously reached out to Fulton and Sadler and asked them to lead the conversation on Monday. Fulton described, though a slideshow, the steps that regional coalitions like the Housatonic Valley Council usually take.

The pooling of regional resources might be a requirement, given that the Hawkins-led Litchfield Prevention Council receives a paltry $2,400 this year for prevention.

“Part of what our organization is about is helping collaborate with other communities,” Fulton said, to utilize the “scant resources” as well as possible. Previously, this money had been going towards several good causes, like supporting the Litchfield Hills Food Systems Sustainable Gardening Program and Rod Dixon’s Kid Marathon Program.

State Representative Miner called for action as soon as possible.

“I’m trying very hard to be patient because everyone is here for the right reasons. But this rabbit is running. And these are our kids,” Miner said, later stating: “This cannot be kicked around for another two months before anyone does anything. It won’t matter a year from now. It’ll be too late for some of these kids.”

Miner called for such suggestions as having drug-sniffing dogs in school, which was raised by resident State Trooper James Holm, to be added to the Board of Education’s next agenda for the Nov. 6 meeting. Holm said he’d like to have the dogs in the schools.

Several area school districts have brought drug-sniffing dogs into schools in the past year, including Torrington and Region 7 (Barkhamsted, New Hartford, Colebrook and Norfolk).

Miner said he thinks the conversation with the education board is critical.

“We have an obligation to notify people that policies are going to change,” Miner said.

Adding a drug-sniffing dog would obviously require budgeting with the police and Board of Education.

The next and only other step that can be taken, according to Fulton, is data gathering. She was asked if she could look at a similar community and the best courses of actions taken there.

Further down the road, Litchfield could survey its students using a 168-question exam that Fulton said takes roughly 35 minutes. The full list of questions can be reviewed in advance by parents, who can have their children opt out if they so choose.

Litchfield has not done a local prevention counsel survey in the past Wheeler said, though they do have school climate surveys.

“You have to know what you’re aiming at,” Fulton said. She advised contact with officials from Goshen, Warren and Morris, given the ability to pool resources. Social worker Steven Bagley, from Region 6, attended the meeting and expressed interest. Wheeler said that Region 6 Superintendent Edward Drapp has also been involved in the conversation.

The work is never done, Fulton said, but the key is getting the right people involved. Reaching out to other parents is a necessity.

“A lot of this has to do with awareness,” she said.

Wheeler said that they will look at this as a regional problem and was happy there was a Region 6 representative in attendance.

“The general answer is yes, there are drugs in our schools,” she said, when pressed by a parent. “A wide variety of them.”

The Housatonic Valley Council against Substance Abuse manages about $300,000 from state and federal sources. The group coordinates the use of funding, gathers data, writes grants and brings groups together state and nationwide, Fulton said. The Litchfield Prevention Council and Brent Hawkins can be contacted at possumcoach21@gmail.com